When Bachar Houli started playing football in Melbourne as a teenager, his parents didn't approve. Now after a 15-year career, he wants to get more Muslims playing the game.
In the past 15 years, only three Muslim men have donned the professional AFL guernsey — "an under-representation" of the Muslim talent available on the market, according to Houli.
Headed by the Bachar Houli Foundation, a group of young men travelled to the United Arab Emirates for a cultural and sporting program to provide personal development, AFL and leadership training."This program offers so much to our youth growing up from a football perspective, from a leadership perspective and from a cultural and religious identity perspective as well," he said.
Amin Naim is alongside fellow participants of the Bachar Houli Foundation elite performance program.These were experiences Houli said he felt too when he was growing up. Now he carries hope that, in the next decade, there will be more inclusivity in the game he loves dearly.
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